


Life In Colour

by JackalopingIntoTheVoid



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 21:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19449697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackalopingIntoTheVoid/pseuds/JackalopingIntoTheVoid
Summary: “There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another.”– Edouard Manet





	Life In Colour

Soulmarks are common.

Everyone has them-- colours left on the skin from the first touch of another, someone important.

Some people have a few here and there, others look like painted canvasses. It’s just a part of being human (and a source of wild speculation from various members of the Covenant).

For a long time, it was believed that Spartans had none.

Some thought it was because they had no one who was important to them; some thought it was because they had no souls. Some thought it was because they spent their lives wrapped in titanium and couldn’t be touched.

As with most rumours about the Spartans, none of it is true.

* * *

In the assembly bay of the Infinity, the armour is pried off by technicians, and he is left in the techsuit with his face bare.

There’s a thick, purple stripe across one cheek, and a sizeable bright orange smudge on the other. They are immediate and especially eye-catching against his chalk-white skin, and Commander Palmer is only one amongst the many who stop and stare.

(He remembers the gentle feeling of a thumb and a knuckle, twin caresses repeated until the memory ingrained itself. He doesn’t remember his parents faces outside of dreams, but he sees his own and remembers that they loved him.)

* * *

The Chief’s techsuit was ruined; the remnants of injuries from before he went into cryo for four years. He’ll have to wait for a new one to be made for him, and in the meantime there is medical treatment.

He can’t remember the last time he saw his own arms. They look like a children’s hand-painting class have been unleashed on them, dozens of handprints in a kaleidoscope of colours-- all of them from training. Just picked up along the way during the exercises, hands grasping forearms to pull each other over obstacles, grasping upper arms to steady each other on ledges. There wasn’t time during the drills to stop and stare and make a moment of it; that came later in the night, secretly from their bunks, whispering colours and placements and figuring out who gave what to who.

There are more in other places, of course. The pale greenish-blue that looks like a bruise from where Kelly punched him (she still thinks it’s hilarious), the deep forest green of Sam’s arm round his shoulders.

He shakes the memories away, lifts a hand to rub at his eyes, but stops at the sight of the silvery grey on his palm. He turns his hand to see what looks to be a truly enormous handprint wrapping around it; a mark received when he was six years old, before a coin toss that he won. It’s strange now, to think that his hands dwarf hers while looking at where the silvery fingers and thumb meet on the back of his hand.

(He does not think about the grass green palm on his upper arm, or the rosy pink fingers that fit between his, or the sunny yellow arms around his chest. Marks from souls that called out to his, people from before that he doesn’t remember.)

* * *

Captain Lasky leaves a royal blue mark after an awkward, well-meaning pat on the back. He aims too low and Chief turns at the wrong moment, so it’s more on his waist than his back, but he’s glad. He sees it immediately when he changes to shower, and smiles. He thought he wouldn’t get anymore-- he’s certainly low on space. The thought prompts a chuckle, and it feels good to laugh.

He knows that on his shoulder blade is a warm, rusty red mark from a more successful pat when he was a younger man, and a brighter red one underneath. Knowing that Lord Hood and Captain Keyes had such similar soulmarks so close to each other was interesting, but made a kind of sense to Chief. (It was comforting, in a way. Familiar.)

The bright amber mark on his shoulder fills him with warmth and grief in equal measure. Johnson died years ago, but he was suspended through those years. It feels like only days have passed since he died in Chief’s arms.

He knows some of his Spartan’s soulmarks are on his back, as well-- for the first time in too long, he manoeuvres the mirror (a full length mirror meant for Spartans) so that he can see.

And stops breathing.

He can see what he was looking for (reds and indigo and cyan and grey), but there’s a new mark he didn’t expect in between the various handprints.

His spine is an iridescent violet, from the base of his skull to his tailbone.

(Cortana wasn’t always blue.)


End file.
